PEASANTS - RESEARCH

  For this short film, I decided to take a completely different approach to cinematography. As apposed to the smooth tripod work I planned to shoot with the fantasy film, with this I wanted to shoot it almost completely handheld. When I read the script, in my opinion the story was shouting out for gritty, imperfect cinematography, to fit the storyline. This is a style which I am very familiar with, and I style that I personally prefer, so it was good to be working on a story that would really benefit from this style. I planned to have lots of handheld movements, and shoot through doorways, windows, cracks in walls etc, to generate this voyueristic feel. For the research film, I decided to go for a more slapstick cinematography style, as me and Elliot felt that this fit the story at the time, but it did not work as well as we thought, also, the script for the grad film has much more subtle comedy, and a lot darker, and more drama driven.

  I started my research by looking at a cinematographer that I was formerly familiar with, being one of my favour DPs, Benoit Debie. Debie started his feature film career in France, where he shot a groundbreaking film Irreversible (Gaspar Noe, 2002). This film is known for its brave cinematography, consisting of really long takes and little editing. Instead Debie decided to follow the action, instead of cutting stereotypically and this made the film feel more real, which is what Gaspar Noe wanted along side his gritty/dark script.

  Debie's style is getting more and more recognisable, and he has created his own, unique look which I admire. His most recent work was for Harmony Korine's Springbreakers, which in my opinion is his best work. For my film Peasants I wish to use similar camera movements, but with a completely different colour palette to Springbreakers, which was very rich, vivid and vibrant, and instead go for a washed out, cold, de-saturated look.

  When researching colour schemes, the way Ben Kingsley's character, Don in Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) is lit throughout the film sprung to mind, as inspiration for how to light the Interviewer, who is seen as the Villain of the film. There is a specific scene that I would make this very present, and it is the first time that the Interviewer is seen in the film, and me and Elliot wanted to make him look as intimidating as possible through both the lighting, and how I shot it. 

  Another inspiration for the way the Interviewer would be shot was Don Corleone in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). As Gordon Willis top lit Brando so that black pools covered his eyes, making him seem more daunting. This was the first time that this lighting method had been used in Hollywood. 

  I was heavily influenced by Ben Wheatley's films for the overall look of this film, especially his first feature, Down Terrace (which was made on a budget or 6 grand). Down Terrace (Ben Wheatley, 2009) was an inspiration for Peasants, in particular, for the scenes set in Joe & Pete's Squat. The lighting is very natural, using lots of daylight and little tungsten lighting. As the characters in my short film are in a squat, there is no electricity, therefore all the scenes in this location use daylight. I wanted to light each character slightly differently. The interviewer being lit low key, with one half of his face dark, and Joe to be lit High key as he is the protagonist, and the hero(ish) of the film. This mostly came down to the blocking and where I positioned the actors on set.